Solidarity brother! I am displeased to hear about this. Corporate asshats can shove it.I wish you all the luck in finding something better for yourself, sounds like that place had its priorities in the wrong place anyways.Instability is a rough place to be, I can relate. Im a paycheck away from homelessness myself.

I mentioned being your own boss a while back because you have the skills to employ yourself.

Aside from keeping track of everything for taxes, you sound set to do almost anything else. The real reward to being your own boss: no more job uncertainties, just the knowledge that you are the only one you'll *ever* have to be accountable to. Need a vacation? Do it. Need free software to offset costs? Do it. Need to get rid of that staffer who's just become a lead weight? Fire him (or even refer him to somewhere more appropriate, if you want to be nice).

Maybe I sound like an annoying nag at the worst, but: there *is* no such thing as job security anywhere in the Western world. Especially for white men, they have no "cards" to play to scare employers into keeping them.

Another thing you have is a following. There are people who followed your work even *after* you lost your job, they're interested in what you write about, and like who you are more than the website that employed you. I'm one of them, I didn't care about USGamer before OR after you weren't there anymore. I just went there for your articles, that was the only value the site had for me.

Pete, I read your blog on this (Where were you working, by the way?) Sorry to hear you were going through some shit. My ex girlfriend has issues with depression at the work place, but her employer was aware of her mental illness and there was some kind of cooperation between them and her therapist(or psychologist) or whatever. There was an acronym for it, but I can't remember.

Anyway, as always I hope you land on your feet. If I lived near you I would easily hire you for piano lessons. I'm currently trying to figure out how I should start. My brother gave me a shitty keyboard (a really old Technics board, 60 something keys? If that? I've been messing around with it, but I need some structured learning of the fundamentals. I taught myself how to "play" the Megaman 2 Dr. Wily stage music by pecking at the keyboard, but that's the extent of my musical "accomplishments".

@Bowley: I was working for an energy company in the UK. One of the most inefficient, idiotic places I've ever had the misfortune to work. They'd hired nine people to do the work of four so, being one of the last in the door, I'm not surprised they found an excuse to get rid of me, however unfair it might have been.

@Teryn: That's the plan, though as ever it's a case of getting set up and figuring out exactly what to do. I've applied for a few work-from-home-friendly positions -- on reflection, I hate office life and office culture so I'll happily take the occasional loneliness and isolation of working from home anyday --and reached out to a few contacts about the possibility of freelancing, but nothing just yet.

The eventual aim is to do a combination of music teaching and writing work that brings in enough to provide a decent income. I don't know how feasible that is, but I certainly have the skills to do both; it's just a case of getting noticed and hired. Unfortunately, that is the difficult bit.

@Elanzer: I'd be all over Niche's inbox right now if they paid. Unfortunately, they haven't quite hit that big-league just yet! I'm following their (impressively rapid) development with some interest, though.

Outside what little freelance work I get I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall checking applications but trying to avoid a dead-end 9-5. Maybe if I was living somewhere where the minimum for one bedroom wasn't $2,000 a month.

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Since 2005, the Squadron of Shame has been embedded at the vanguard of underappreciated, obscure and noteworthy videogames.